All Tucked In…. Jule Mcbride
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her genuine concern. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. He glanced over his shoulder toward a long entry hall. “Actually, that’s the reason for the tie,” he confessed. Before explaining, he continued. “I’m still so clueless when it comes to wearing them that Elsie had to knot the thing.”
An image of Sandy Craig crowded into her mind. “Elsie?” she couldn’t help but ask, trying to sound casual. Who was Elsie?
“Oh.” His eyes widened slightly in surprise as if he’d expected her to know. “Elsie’s my assistant.”
She hoped she hadn’t sounded jealous. Obviously, she had no right to the feeling. Her lips parted. “Cassandra’s gone?”
He nodded. “Married a prof from Carnegie-Melon. What about Jenna?”
“She’s still at the café. She got married, too.”
“That mountain bike buff?”
She shook her head. “No. The tattoo artist.”
Weddings were the last thing either one of them probably wanted to talk about, but Carla plunged on. “He has his own parlor now. The bike buff went to Alaska for a summer and never came back.”
Another uncomfortable pause followed during which they tried to ignore the depth of their shared past and all the nuptial bliss that hadn’t been theirs. In the silence, Carla actually felt her pulse quicken at the fantasy that he was lying, and that he’d actually dressed up for her, a notion he squelched by saying, “J. J. Sloane’s in town. He’s staying in the mansion, so you’ll probably see him. He’s trying to decide whether to give the next lease to me or to the Preservation Society.”
“Ah. So, you’re on best behavior.”
He offered a droll expression she’d always loved that made him look uncharacteristically petulant and boyish. “Unfortunately.”
You do so hate to be good. The words were on the tip of her tongue, and suddenly, she wanted to suggest that they be naughty…together. “The dreams are the same,” she ventured instead, determined to get the interview back on track.
“Still having that golden underwear dream, huh?”
For a second, despite how the dream had often terrified her, she almost laughed. In the cold light of day, it seemed so ridiculous. She nodded. “Yes.” Though talking about underwear with Tobias was right up there with the subject of marriage.
His brows furrowed in thought. Thick and bushy, they almost came together, forming a ledge. “And the sleepwalking?”
She shrugged. “That’s hard to say. I live alone.” Once more, there was the reminder that they’d planned to share a home, and she mentally flashed on the two-bedroom apartment further down Fifth Avenue, near the university, which they’d rented. She’d wound up living in it for three years. When he’d married Sandy Craig, she’d decided she needed a change, and after that move, of course, she’d ended up back in the apartment she’d previously shared with her parents.
“So you don’t know if you sleepwalk?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t wake up in places other than your own bed?”
“Uh…no, Tobias.”
He sent her a long look. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Good Catholic girl that she was, she figured Tobias knew she hadn’t slept with anyone besides him. But maybe he’d actually been fishing. “Of course you didn’t.”
Once more, heat surged between them. A relationship was impossible, of course, she found herself thinking. After all, she’d left him at the altar, and then he’d married Sandy Craig. But Tobias was the only man she’d ever slept with—the only one she’d ever wanted to sleep with—and she’d definitely missed having sex. A lot. The truth was, Carla hadn’t done it in seven years now. The way she’d been brought up, a woman only slept with her husband. Or at least the man she’d thought was going to be her husband.
Sucking in a breath, she collected her thoughts. “Sometimes, come to think of it, I do wake up on the couch,” she said. “As you know, Ma said I definitely sleepwalked as a kid.”
He jotted something in the margin of her intake sheet. “Has anything changed in the dreams?”
“Changed?”
Chewing his lower lip, he thought a moment, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Is anything different?” Shrugging, he added, “Maybe about the room where the dream takes place? Does the man ever say anything new?”
As much as she hated visualizing the dream that had so often disturbed her, she shook her head. “No. Everything’s the same.”
He looked disappointed. “Are you sure?”
She hated to say it. “Absolutely.”
He sighed. “Well…what I’d like to try tonight, assuming you have the nightmare, is some guided dream imagery.”
Now they were getting down to business, and she felt a rush of nervousness. Her hand tightened on the strap of the overnight duffel bag she’d nestled near her feet. “Meaning?”
“When your nightmare’s in progress, I’ll administer electrical impulses.” Interrupting himself as he stood, he added, “It doesn’t hurt. With any luck, it’ll change the course of your nightmare.”
She stood also, feeling surprised when he took her bag. Why, she didn’t know. Tobias was always a gentleman. Still, the bag wasn’t heavy at all, so the gesture was unnecessary. She was squinting at him. “Meaning?”
He considered. “Well…various things can happen,” he explained. “I’ll attach electrodes to your head, then when your nightmare begins, I’ll send small jolts of electricity to your nerve endings.”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured. Already, he was doing a fairly good job of that, so she could hardly wait for tonight.
“Patients say that something new happens in their dreams,” he continued. “For instance, the dark room in which it occurs might suddenly change into an enchanted forest, and the bad people are dealt with, maybe sent away by trusted friends. Or you might confront the man. Either way, the content of the dream changes just enough that you find your way out of it. It turns into a good story with a happy ending.”
She paused, fighting a shudder. She didn’t want her repeating nightmare to occur tonight, much less to confront the man who’d haunted her for so many years. “Great,” she muttered. She was rewarded by the feel of Tobias’s hand. It landed on the small of her back, and he used it to guide her through the doorway.
“Don’t worry,” he said, reassuringly. The creamy brown eyes that cut toward her settled on her face and didn’t pull away. “I’ll be there all night, Carla.”
“You?” Recollections of how he’d held her after her nightmares came back then, and she almost could feel his strong arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her close against his hard, naked body. All at once, she felt a rush of safety, just from the memory. But she also wondered what he was talking about. “You’ll be with me?”
He nodded. “While you’re sleeping, I’ll be right on the other side of a glass partition. As soon as we get upstairs, you’ll see.”
“A GLASS PARTITION,” she murmured.
Tobias could tell she wasn’t entirely happy with the setup. Not that he blamed her. He was just as uncomfortable. Was he really going to spend the night watching Carla DiDolche sleep? Why did she have to show up here, after all these years? And at a time when J. J. Sloane was considering whether or not to give Tobias the lease? Right now, he needed to concentrate, and he could hardly do so with Carla traipsing around the Sloane mansion in a nightgown. “See? It’s just a piece of glass. Last time you were here we hadn’t yet started using this room.”
“I